Ice Storm Cooking
The ice storm took our power for two weeks.
No stove, microwave, heat, shower, toilet.
So we took our business out to the woods,
where every branch was held out stiff with ice
like accusatory fingers.
We did our business in the woods,
and when we were done, the chubby retriever ate it.
Every time, still warm.
She’d gobble it like it was a steak dinner,
and maybe, at one point, it was.
Friends offered advice: “Use meat tenderizer; dogs won’t eat that.”
So, we walked into the cold, slipping through the woods,
baring all to the wind. Ankle deep in snow, we seasoned
our droppings like a French chef, precise.
Which the golden retriever promptly ate.
It was too much to take.
I took to scooping snow over it,
glancing around as though it were treasure or sin,
but she liked the digging.
“Use crushed red pepper,” “garlic,” “cloves,”
It is amazing how many people have opinions about shit.
In His Image
Try to say the words
“I can do something that God can’t.”
I can’t say them, so I must believe that
God burns toast, that
God eats mozzarella sticks, that
God bleeds when his knife
slips chopping celery.
God gets heartburn
after drinking coffee,
and he must think
of killing people,
He must lie in bed
watching sci-fi
under a great blue blanket
while sirens whine outside.
God hears(our prayers),
and sees(our actions).
He knows(our hearts),
and he smells our humid
outhouses in August.
He most likely trolls the mall
from time to time,
where he chomps on a stale gumball,
looking into store windows.
Rubbing sample lotion
on his hands
while staring at Victoria’s Secret models.
He is a “he,” after all.
Could God lust?
No.
Too far.
God could never do that.